Here is a good article on the subject: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/swim-in-denial/201704/psychology-conspiracy-theory
An interesting factor that I didn’t mention earlier is that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories might be correlating with “lack of humility”. A person that lacks humility will have a hard time coping with his own lack of understanding. This might provoke him to come up with simplified home made explanations to create a false sense of order - more comfortable than accepting that you don’t quite get it.
It’s already happened many times in this thread 
Also, after looking at some of the posts in this thread, I believe that there is a psychological mechanism of “false rebellionship”. People that feel like victims might be more prone to creating a context where they can experience themselves as “rebels” (in opposition to conventions) - thereby creating a false sense of regaining power.
@joule: btw not personal attacks(I am not that type of guy), just arguments as in arguments passed to your brain_function(). I wish your opinions were as useful as your awesome tools. Luv U.
So, ‘Rock is dead’ or ‘No one listens to jazz’ gets passed around as #fact except that you can walk into(if permitted entry) any noteworthy music college and get through University level courses for Jazz and walk into any pub to see a rock band. The bulk of the population don’t really pursue these things full time and hence it can be a perception developed as of the 1% who engage in such pursuits don’t exist as such.
Regarding pyschology, it’s another black box science becos no one objectively understand what the mind is or how it works fully so we are back to the ‘science’ versus omniscience argument. Taking cues from rock bands and their brand of loud banging music with just 3 chords, I assume they had teen angst issues and dad or mom issues too. Healthy dose of poverty and ‘so called rebellion’ that has made endearing art, as far as I can tell even if I hate rock for the most part (except Messhuggah). They often contradict each other, becos unlike music which has a universal framework, pyschology is just another man made topic in a quest to better understand himself. Like AI trying to figure out if it is concious, very tricky business.
Crackers changed the intellectual property industry and the overall path of commerce by their ‘rebellious’ anti establishment ethic.You know the free speech free beer thing… Open Source would not be there if rebel programmers like Stallman did not carry out their objectives and ideals. I read books by Dr. Gregory Peck who is a Harvard Medical School Psychologist or was becos he is not with us anymore and his books illuminate the dismal state of our understanding of things so far, while still engaging the reader in really deep subjects that are surprisingly humanitarian.
Also, as per your communication style, it’s very easy to parrot sources regardless of their merit like a bibliography copy pasted at the end of your ‘book’ except that the book itself contains nothing to support itself. Like a politician who snatches a baby from the audience the moment he hears a gunshot, thinking that he is going to be assassinated any second now and is actually ducking for cover. This is as far from being a rebel and more like a certified coward; a politician nonetheless. You get these types in very visible places too, nothing to go about in underground bunkers only. For a more information theory based analysis instance, increasing entropy in the data stream makes it more difficult to find useful data because randomness increases and patterns dissolve as we expect form a structured information source. However entropy analysis is real simple to implement and detect though, just take a statistical ratio summation of the data entities and take a log of the same to get a scaled value. For an 8 bit entropy test yours would be 7.9!
For a musical analysis instance, it’s like trying to explain diminished substitutions in Jazz by presenting Noisecore:) I got jazz books too…
‘Lack of humility’ is an interesting analysis when your last fallacy which I played with reeks of hubris and condescension to its core. It seems just having a list of fallacies is not enough, you have to read them too. Like a restaurant menu collection whose items you never ate in reality. It takes time to ‘digest’ so no need to gulp everything in one go. Remember you are human too and your fallacy fantasy of becoming God won’t come true anytime soon. So my summary would be #pretentious.
I take solace in classic literature so something comes to mind, because authors are primarily artists and also social scientists, they understand humans far better than an psychologist ever can, and write better than them too.
‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.’ - Mark Twain
Its hard to outdo Mark Twain when it comes to acerbic wit. He is the master of wit, one of the best. Some more gems.
‘It is easier to stay out than get out’.
‘I’ve come loaded with statistics for I’ve noticed that a man can’t prove anything without statistics’.
‘When we remember we are all mad the mysteries dissapear and life stands explained’.
‘Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech not information’.
‘A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way’.
‘Cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education’
‘Continous improvement is better than delayed perfection’.
‘The trouble isn’t that there are too many fools but that the lighting isn’t distributed right’.
